MORIANERNA (1965)
aka Morianna
Article 3089 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-31-2009
Posting Date: 1-28-2010
Directed by Anne Mattsson
Featuring Anders Henrikson, Eva Dahlbeck, Heinz Hopf
Country: Sweden
What it is: Swedish horror thriller…

A hated patriarch is murdered. His family are the immediate suspects. But is he really dead…?

Most of the above plot description is culled from one I found at several locations on the internet; it makes the movie sound something like an “old dark house” thriller. Since my own copy of this movie is in unsubtitled Swedish, I can’t verify too much of the plot, but things seem a little complex. The fantastic content is vague; the Willis guide mentions a killer appearing suddenly “like an avenging ghost”, and the Lee guide talks about the murders, a dead man mysteriously appearing in his favorite chair, and a phone call from Death. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to combine these hints into what seems to me like a coherent story, and, truth to tell, it may not be; with only a 5.0 rating on IMDB, there’s reason to believe the movie isn’t very good, and the one plot description I found said the movie was more memorable for the nude scenes than anything else. For me, the moments that stand out include a man’s unexpected appearance when I thought he had been killed, and a scene where a doll is burned at the stake. I found this one impenetrable, and must wait for an English version before I can make sense of it.

THE MYSTIC (1925)
Article 3079 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-21-2009
Posting Date: 1-18-2010
Directed by Tod Browning
Featuring Aileen Pringle, Conway Tearle, Mitchell Lewis
Country: USA
What it is: A love story disguised as a crime story about mystics

Three gypsies are recruited by an American con man to take part in the bilking of an heiress. However, when the con man has a change of heart about the plan, he discovers the gypsies aren’t so ready to give up their share…

One of the gypsies plays the part of a mystic who can summon the dead, and the scenes involving her show are fun and eerie; this is what provides the fantastic content to this Tod Browning movie. The story itself is pretty clever; it’s fascinating to watch the way the various parties involved (the heiress, the con man, the police, and the three gypsies) play against each other, with the power constantly shifting from one party to another. Lon Chaney is not in this one, but that’s understandable; there really doesn’t seem to be an ideal part for him here. Aileen Pringle is a lot of fun as the gypsy woman/mystic; whether holding a seance, or casually eating food while the knife-thrower practices his craft with her, she’s a joy to watch. It’s one of those movies that is quite unpredictable, and it’s definitely one of Browning’s better efforts.

MURDERERS’ ROW (1966)
Article 3047 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-11-2009
Posting Date: 12-17-2009
Directed by Henry Levin
Featuring Dean Martin, Ann-Margret, Karl Malden
Country: USA
What it is: Faux James Bond, Matt Helm style

Matt Helm must locate a scientist who has the secret to a powerful death ray… before he falls into the wrong hands.

Watching this movie so soon after having seen a Disney shopping cart movie gave me an interesting perspective on it. It occurred to me that, despite the endless drinking, pulchritude and double entendres that populate this movie, it felt like it exuded the same sense of innocence as the Disney comedies. The key here is in the double entendres; they’re handled with such a light touch that the movie has the air of a good-natured wink (unlike THE AMBUSHERS, where the same elements were handled so crassly that they came across like a smarmy smirk). This sense of innocent fun is what set the Matt Helm movies apart from the James Bond films, which they otherwise emulate. Unfortunately, as the movie goes along, it moves away from the humor and starts emphasizing the action, and when it does this, you’re fully aware you’re watching a second-rate James Bond imitation, and the lethargic pacing (which infects the whole movie) becomes especially noticeable. Still, it’s likable enough, with some great Ann-Margret dancing and some Crosby-Hope Road movie referential humor (in moments which involve Karl Malden, Frank Sinatra, and the group Dino, Desi & Billy). The ending, unfortunately, tries to get too much mileage out of a repeated running gag involving a time-delayed gun; it should have been used twice at best but it pops up repeatedly.

This leaves one more Matt Helm movie to go in the series.

THE MONKEY’S UNCLE (1965)
Article 3046 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-9-2009
Posting Date: 12-16-2009
Directed by Robert Stevenson
Featuring Tommy Kirk, Annette Funicello, Leon Ames
Country: USA
What it is: Shopping Cart Movie

Merlin Jones’s experiments with monkeys are used to save the football team at Midvale college. In the first half, he must find a way to help the football players pass their English exams or else face expulsion. In the second half, he must prove that men can fly under their own power in order for the college to net a ten million dollar contribution that will trump a smaller one which requires the removal of the football program.

Feeling as they do like TV episodes strung together, the Merlin Jones movies come across as the chintziest of the Disney shopping cart movies. But even the Disney at its chintziest has its surprises; for one thing, that’s no anonymous rock group backing up Annette Funicello in the opening song, but the Beach Boys themselves. I also noticed that even though the movie consists of two separate stories, they don’t feel quite as disjointed as they might have, because there are enough similar themes between the two halves (the sleep learning, the theme of saving the football team, the monkey subplot) to make the movie feel more like a single entity. Granted, it’s still one of the weaker of Disney’s efforts, and it really suffers by comparison to some of Disney’s other efforts of the era. All in all, it’s likable enough, but extremely minor.

MACISTE IN KING SOLOMON’S MINES (1964)
aka Samson in King Solomon’s Mines, Maciste nelle miniere di re Salomone
Article 3043 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-6-2009
Posting Date: 12-13-2009
Directed by Piero Regnoli
Featuring Reg Park, Wandisa Guida, Bruno Piergentili
Country: Italy
What it is: Sword-and-Sandal fantasy

An evil courtier combines forces with a female barbarian to conquer a fortress that will give them access to the riches of King Solomon’s mines. When they do so, they make slaves of the villagers in the surrounding countryside, but Maciste is going to come to the rescue…

There’s a couple of pieces of novelty to this sword-and-sandal epic. It’s set in Africa and features location footage from South Africa (making this at least partially a jungle movie as well), and the female villain starts out as a fighting barbarian. I was hoping they’d make interesting use of that last aspect, but once she becomes queen of the city, she becomes just another in a long line of evil queens. Maciste does lots of heavy lifting, is outwitted by the evil queen and becomes her slave, and, as usual, comes to the rescue in the end. Despite the above novelties, this is pretty routine.

THE MIRACLE (1959)
Article 3023 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-17-2009
Posting Date: 11-23-2009
Directed by Irving Rapper and Gordon Douglas
Featuring Carroll Baker, Roger Moore, Walter Slezak
Country: USA

During the Napoleonic wars, a novitiate in a Spanish convent falls in love with an English soldier. She prays to a statue of the Madonna for a miracle, and when none is given, she tears off her nun’s outfit, leaves the convent, turns against Christianity, and seeks her soldier. The statue comes to life, puts on the nun’s outfit, and replaces the novitiate at the convent, while the ex-novitiate learns the price of turning against God.

Truth be told, I was expecting another one of those miracle movies akin to THE MIRACLE OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA, but that’s hardly what this is like; they openly claim the story is a legend from the beginning, and it’s more like a long Catholic-themed soap opera than anything else. It’s overwrought and very Hollywoodish; it’s one of those movie where all the nuns wear immaculate makeup and every random group of singing soldiers, peasants, or nuns sounds like they’ve had years of musical training. In particular, the symbolism is so blatantly obvious that it verges on camp (twice the heroine ends up literally with the blood of her lovers on her hands). The acting from the leads isn’t particularly good, and Walter Slezak’s role is a little too silly, but the movie is stolen by Torin Thatcher in a cameo as Wellington; he brings an authority to his role that is sorely missing from the rest of the movie. Before it’s all through we get gypsy passion, bullfighting, Spanish dancing, the battle of Waterloo, a second miracle, and guilt-tripping galore. It’s a little to silly to have real impact, but it is entertainingly watchable for all that, if a bit too long.

MY SON, THE HERO (1962)
aka Arrivano i titani
Article 3018 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-12-2009
Posting Date: 11-18-2009
Directed by Duccio Tessari
Featuring Pedro Armendariz, Giuliano Gemma, Antonella Lualdi
Country: Italy / France

The king of Crete is placed under a curse that says that he will die when his daughter falls in love with a man; he decides to isolate her so that she may meet no man. The gods decide to release a Titan named Krios from Hades so that he can try to meet the isolated princess and bring about the king’s fate; if he succeeds, his fellow Titans will also be released.

This is one of the more offbeat sword-and-sandal movies out there. It’s something of a comedy, but I prefer to think of it as a light-hearted take on the genre, and it finds a nice balance between action, adventure and humor. It takes a slightly different approach than the others; our hero isn’t extremely strong, but he’s very clever and uses his wits to accomplish his ends. There are some good highlights here; the scene where Krios takes part in the hunt of a slave in which he reasons out the actions the slave will take in making his escape is one, and the final battle in which Krios is joined by his fellow Titans is another. In the interim, Krios sneaks back into Hades to steal Pluto’s headpiece, faces a Gorgon, and borrows some weapons from a cyclops. The use of music is very different here as well; in particular, I like the music during the scene where the slave destroys a bridge. It takes a little while to get started, and it’s overlong, the dubbing is uneven (the acting is quite good, but the lip synch is very bad at times), but it may be one of the most creative variations on a genre that is too often overly predictable.

THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES (1984)
Article 3017 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-11-2009
Posting Date: 11-17-2009
Directed by Philip Jackson
Featuring Anne Dansereau, Peter Brikmanis, Jacques Couture
Country: Canada

After an economic collapse in the future, the world is controlled by semi-sentient computers which have psychic connections with their human counterparts. When a project is initiated that involves the shifting of asteroids out of their orbits, a computer known simply as The Beast begins receiving communications from outside the system… despite the fact that this is impossible.

Sometimes the title of the movie can tell you quite a bit about it. In this case, the title prepared me for something out of the ordinary, with touches of poetry and mysticism. In many ways, that odd sense permeates the movie itself; from the opening credits (which are listed in both English and French, which should clue you off that this one comes from Canada) to the incessant chatter of radio voices to the lyrical music to the off-putting acting style, there is a real sense of something different here. It should be no surprise that it’s an art movie, and an extremely cheap one at that. The acting style is most striking; characters often deliver their lines as if they’re not quite in the moment, and though this may seem amateurish, it also somehow fits the feel of everything else. It’s often rather static; we have long conversations that are occasionally impenetrable, and anyone expecting much in the way of action will be very disappointed. I’m not surprised that the movie has a 4.1 rating on IMDB; I can easily see this movie annoying and boring many viewers. I myself can’t quite dismiss it; there IS something going on in these static conversations, I became fascinated by the choices of names for the various people, places and things (“The Beast”, “Melody”, “Einstein”, “Atlantis”). Maybe it’s all piffle, but if so, it’s interesting piffle, and I plan to watch it again some time to sort out more of the details. And it’s also fun to catch another movie about men moving asteroids around so soon after MOON ZERO TWO.

P.S. In the interim between the time I first wrote this review, the IMDB rating of this movie has moved up to 5.6. It looks like the reputation of this one is beginning to rise.

MOON ZERO TWO (1969)
Article 3015 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-9-2009
Posting Date: 11-15-2009
Directed by Roy Ward Baker
Featuring James Olson, Catherine Schell, Warren Mitchell
Country: UK

A spaceship pilot is hired to help crash an asteroid made of sapphire into the far side of the moon. However, he finds himself embroiled in a plot that involves the murder of a moon miner and the theft of his claim, as it is the location where the asteroid is expected to land.

Much of the advertising for this movie put it forward as a science fiction western, and I can see how something like that could work; if you consider the old west and outer space as new frontiers, you can see the connection. However, the “western” elements of this science fiction movie seem either ill-advised (six-guns on the moon?), silly (“Moon Fargo”) or inconsequential (dressing up the local bar like a saloon and having the dancers wear cowboy hats); about the only strong western element is that the storyline involves miners and claim-jumping. The style doesn’t have any particularly western feel to it, and the music seems more James-Bondish than westernish. Even the opening animation (which leads you to believe the movie is going to be a comedy) has no particular western feel to it, and the cold-war theme of the animation has no reflection in the movie itself. Granted, I’m not surprised the movie fails to feel in any way like a western – I’ve never got the sense that the British were particularly adept at handling that mostly American form.

Ignoring all the western foofaraw for the moment, I do think the movie has a decent plot, and there are some fun moments here. Nevertheless, the movie falls flat; the pace is often turgid, and James Olson, though not a bad actor, lacks the charisma to make his character appealing. As a result, the movie never really takes off. This one can be chalked up as one of Hammer’s failed experiments.

MISTRESS OF THE WORLD (1960)
aka Die Herrin der Welt – Teil 1
Article 3014 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-8-2009
Posting Date: 11-14-2009
Directed by William Dieterle and Richard Angst
Featuring Martha Hyer, Micheline Presle, Carlos Thompson
Country: France / Italy / West Germany

When a trio of scientists discovers a formula that allows a magnetic field to knock out electricity over a large area, they become the target of kidnappers. Interpol is called in to find the scientists and recover the formula.

What we have here is another example of the Gizmo Maguffin; the formula is used towards the beginning of the movie, and the rest of the movie involves heroes and villains fighting over the formula. It’s directed by Williem Dieterle, who was responsible for some great movies during the thirties and forties. On one level, I really like this movie; it has a markedly different feel than many other spy movies, with the spies doing a lot more team-oriented work rather than the usual lone-wolf approach of most of the other movies of this genre. It also attempts a higher level of realism than those movies; parts of the movie almost feel like a police procedural of sorts. There’s some particularly wonderful location work as well, especially during the last part of the movie which takes place at Angkor. Unfortunately, most of the movie is slow-moving and too talky; when the heroine lashes out at the Interpol agents for doing nothing but talking, you’ll feel for her.

It’s possible the problems with the movie may have to do with the cutting of the English-language print; my source for the movie tells me that it was cut heavily. This presents a bit of a mystery to me; my cut runs 106 minutes, longer than the IMDB time of 98 minutes, which seems to imply that very little was cut but new footage was added. However, I can’t help but notice that the German title indicates that this was Part 1, and a follow-up movie that ran 89 minutes was also shot. Is it possible that my print is actually a shortened version of the combined footage of both movies? This seems likely; the cast for the second movie seems the same, and includes characters that would have been dead for the sequel had my print been for the first movie only. If this is true, than a good eighty minutes is missing here.